Sentences with phrase «seafloor sulfide»
And over millions of years, the movement and collisions of tectonic plates have lifted some of these seafloor sulfide mounds onto land, where they have been discovered and mined.
http://discovermagazine.com/
His was the first exploration claim to a seafloor sulfide deposit, and it was the beginning of Nautilus Minerals.
On the other hand, as Scott himself points out, it was a quarter century ago, in 1984, that he first predicted seafloor sulfide deposits would be mined one day.
Compared with manganese nodules, the seafloor sulfides associated with hydrothermal vents have a huge advantage: They are much easier to get to.
Not exact matches
The seafloor along the Alarcón Rise is covered in young, fresh lava, and the fluids spewing out of the vents are very hot (up to 360 degrees Celsius) and rich in metal sulfides that form dark, crumbly chimneys known as «black smokers.»
On the Alarcón Rise, massive, dark - colored sulfide chimneys rise more than 37 meters (120 feet) above the lava - covered seafloor.
A large, drum - shaped cutting tool at the end of a long boom will be able to cut up to 6,000 tons of sulfide rock a day from the seafloor, chopping it into nuggets of an inch or less.
The smoke turned out to contain concentrated metal sulfides, which the superheated salt water was drawing out from the volcanic rock under the seafloor.
In strip - mining a bit less than 30 acres of seafloor, Nautilus will consume hydrothermal chimneys and wipe out the clusters of snails and barnacles, crab and shrimp that are nourished by their sulfide emanations.
«What we found is a fish with an amazing tolerance to anoxia and hydrogen sulfide that literally holds its breath on the seafloor by day — where it eats lots of carbon - rich mud,» says biologist Mark Gibbons of the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa, another participant in the study.
Not only can they hide from mackerel amongst the jellies» stinger - covered tentacles when they rise from the seafloor to feed and digest at night, they can also survive for hours within the ocean floor's low - or no - oxygen muds, which are pervaded by poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas — an inhospitable place lacking any other vertebrate species.